Remotely turn on your PC with Cortana by using VoiceWake for Windows Phone 8.1

VoiceWake Lite is a new app for those running Windows Phone 8.1 and who also have Cortana available to them. That means mostly people in the US, unless you used a region-hack to enable Microsoft’s new voice-assistant. The app has one singular purpose: wake up your PC using ‘Wake On LAN’. That’s useful for a number of reasons, including turning your PC on when 2,000 miles away, and we’re sure you have your ideas too.

Not sure what Wake On LAN is for? Read the Wiki history right here. Hint: it's not to turn your PC on when in the same room.

The app is simple enough to use and the ‘lite’ feature, implies a non-ad-supported version is on the way too. More on that below.

To use the app, just download, and it configure it with your PC’s MAC address, IP info and some other tidbits. Likewise, you need to have Wake On LAN enabled on your PC, which is usually found under the BIOS settings when the computer first boots. Many of you probably already use Wake On LAN, so this should be old hat.

Once you have everything configured, you can then bark this command at your phone: "Cortana wake [computername]". All the app of course does the Wake On LAN part, but really it’s a simple voice command that is the trick here.

Want to see it in action? Make sure you watch the embedded video to see how it works!

A paid version is also on the way, and it has a provocative “location based wake feature and a wake schedule feature. Meaning you will be able to tell Cortana to wake your PC when you arrive somewhere, or at a given time”. That sounds all sorts of awesome to our ears and look forward to its arrival.

Pick up VoiceWake Lite here in the Store, and we’ll keep an eye out for that paid version coming later. Windows Phone 8.1 ONLY.

This here is very possible and I want this. I will soon have my house fully automated and this will be awesome, arming and disarming my alarm. Turning lights on and off through Cortana. The potential should be endless

Yes they all should be able to communicate with each other through the cloud. And since my house is on my network at home Cortana should be able to control my automated home.. But Cortana should be limitless, being able to understand anything and being able to do anything

While nifty, I'm not sure that's any faster than reaching my hand down and hitting a button. So wouldn't be a lot of help for me.

Butttttt... Has anyone tried Cortana's location awareness with this? Could I potentially tell Cortana to wake my work machine when I'm in the parking lot on my way in? That, to me, would be an awesome feature.

Really??? Try waking up a server or workstation in another state when boots on the ground aren't available. You gonna fly/drive to a location without first taking the easy approach by sending a magic packet remotely?

They are working on bringing Cortana to Xbox with Kinect. So ill bet on what u want will happen too. I'm waiting for the Smartwatch with cortana on it. Pre launch my Xbox when I'm almost home would be awesome.

The promised location awareness thing will be cool, but a lot of these apps that are being updated to "support" Cortana really could work on 8.0.

8.0 had an awesome voice plugin system and 8.1 hasn't expanded upon it at all- it's the same thing. Kinda depressing that devs are only now implementing it.

I hope by the end of Cortana's beta, she can a) launch apps while the phone is locked (perhaps through kid's corner). b) let apps play audio over HSP. Between a and b, "hands free" support is a joke and non existent on WP. c) Run background tasks on demand. Why should this voicewake app even have to open to do something so trivial? There should be a background task that can be invoked manually by Cortana.

Very cool app if it works... I have a few computers on my home network that I take advantage of S3 sleep (only 2-3watts in standby and wait time is less than 1/2 a second on most of them). The only problem is, when I remote into my server, these machines are asleep and it can be a pain to wake them up.